Diplomat warned of US tactics angering Iraqis

A SENIOR British diplomat warned that US policies and military tactics in post-invasion Iraq "made the situation worse", a previously secret document has revealed.

Sir David Richmond, the UK's former special representative in Iraq, told Downing Street and the Foreign Office that Britain and the United States had "fallen short" of what they hoped to achieve.

Sir David listed the growing unpopularity of the US-UK occupation as among "the most visible signs" of the coalition's failures.

In a telegram sent on 28 June, 2004, as he prepared to leave Baghdad, he wrote: "What might have been an uneasy acquiescence was too often turned into anger and resentment by military tactics which were heavy-handed and disdainful of the Iraqis."

Sir David's telegram - released by the Iraq Inquiry yesterday - dates from the end of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) set up to run Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

Sir David noted that the US military presence "was always going to be a magnet for Islamic extremists".

But he added: "It is hard to escape the conclusion that CPA policies and US military tactics made the situation worse."